International flights can be a pain, since you are strapped into your seat for over 10 hours, but how does the food fare while being 30,000 feet up in the air?

NYU has a large international student population — about one in five students hail from another country — and making the trek to NYU includes trying the delicacies of the sky. Many NYU students had comments on the best and assuredly the worst international airline food.

Steinhardt School of Culture Education and Human Development freshman Hana Smith was happy with the service she received.

“[All Nippon Airways] treat you like royalty even if you’re in economy class,” Smith said. “ They bring out soba and ramen anytime you ask for it.”

Smith raved about ANA’s selection of Japanese and foreign food, saying it’s always fresh and hot. She’s been on United Airlines for international flights, but remembered the food was lackluster in addition to the less than stellar service, which just added to the list of United’s cons. Even with all of the backlash against United in recent news, some passengers are content with United’s food offerings, such as Tandon junior Hank Searfus.

“United has the best catering amongst all the domestic airlines with American being the worst,” Searfus said. “U.S.-based airlines tend to skimp on the beverage portion of meal service, charging you for liquor.”

You get what you pay for, especially in the case of College of Arts and Sciences freshman Pratheek Nagaprasad, who flew economy class on Emirates Airline when coming to NYU this fall.

“I hear that the first class meals are superb, but considering the debt I’m in because of tuition I forwarded economy and the food wasn’t the best,” Nagaprasad said.

CAS freshman Daniela Bologna said that the vegetarian and vegan food options on Virgin Airlines have been the best so far, since the food usually is made fresh to order.

“Although variety doesn’t really seem to be a feature, I really appreciate that they try to add spices to flavour the food, as many times vegan food in trains and planes is quite bland,” Bologna said.

On three consecutive occasions, CAS junior Whitt Van Tassell was left without food options on his flights from Atlanta to Paris, Dublin to Atlanta, and Atlanta to London. He had booked his flight through a third-party booking service and noted that he needed a gluten-free meal option. Upon boarding the flight, the Delta employees had no knowledge of his dietary restrictions and nothing he could eat on board.

“It’s probably an accident, but the flight attendant explained that to me like it wasn’t out of the ordinary,” Van Tassell said. “She immediately asked if I’d booked with a third party. When I told her I requested a gluten-free option, she didn’t have one for me.”

When it comes to international flights, the verdict seems to be that specialty food is the way to go. Domestic airlines are still missing the mark, whereas international airlines seem to treat all customers with similar respect in food.

Email Pamela Jew at [email protected]